Going green is a relatively new concept in Hong Kong, yet the city has taken to the idea with some enthusiasm. Recycling bins for paper, plastic and aluminum, once a rarity, can now be found all over the city, while the majority of retailers have voluntarily instituted “No Plastic Bag Days”. A new edition of the book Going Green in Hong Kong, a guide to environmentally-friendly living in Hong Kong by Catherine Touzard and Fabienne Malaval Dupré (Book Collection, 2007), appeared before the book was even a year old.
Environmental Problems in Hong Kong
For all its new-found enthusiasm for protecting the environment, Hong Kong is faced with some daunting environmental challenges. Prime among these is Hong Kong’s notoriously poor air quality. Much of this is attributable to industrial pollution wafting over from the Chinese mainland, regularly obscuring the view and exacerbating health problems.
Hong Kong is also a small place, and the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) of Hong Kong has said that the city is running out of landfill space far earlier than expected. The per capita level of municipal solid waste disposal has increased from 1.28 kg per person per day in 1991, to 1.36 kg per person per day in 2007. Existing landfills will be filled up in the early to mid 2010s, if the current level of increase continues.
Environmentally-Friendly Initiatives
Although pollution from factories on the mainland remains a significant problem, the situation is alleviated by an impressive public transport system. Cheap and wide-ranging, around 95% of the public uses it. In addition, the large taxi fleet has been modified to allow engines to run on liquefied petroleum gas, which releases much cleaner emissions than diesel. In an effort to cut roadside pollution, the government has proposed an idling ban, which would make it illegal for drivers to leave their engines running while their vehicle is stationary.
As if to emphasize that something needs to be done, data from a regional network of monitoring stations shows that air quality in Guangdong and Hong Kong in the first half of 2008 was marginally worse than a year earlier. In her article "Environmental Management" in the 18 January 2008 edition of The South China Morning Post, Jacqueline Tsang reported that while the government has spent HK$23 billion on waste management and environmental programmes since 1997, visibility in urban areas has dropped 33 per cent in the past 10 years.
While the official governmental attitude to environmental protection has been a little lacklustre, grass-roots initiatives to protect Hong Kong’s environment are growing. Hong Kongers are still shopping, but they are carrying their shopping in stylish and re-usable cloth bags, and recycling much of what they buy.
Paris Franz - Paris Franz is a London-based freelance journalist, specialising in the arts, history and travel.
